A Civil Rights Attorney in the United States has uploaded a video from 2018 that shows police handcuffing an 8-year-old black special needs child to 'scare him straight'. It has also been revealed that the boy was then booked into a juvenile detention facility.
The incident was said to have occurred after the boy hit his teacher in the chest in a fit of anger. As a result, the police were called to the Gerald Adams Elementary School in Key West, Florida. It was then he was lectured by the police, handcuffed, and led away. The whole incident was caught on camera.
The boy is confirmed to have special needs.
Benjamin Crump, the attorney who uploaded the video to twitter, said:
"Instead of honoring and fulfilling that plan, the school placed him with a substitute teacher who had no awareness or concern about his needs and who escalated the situation by using her hands to forcibly move him. […] When he acted out, the teacher called the police, who threatened him with jail and tried to put him in handcuffs, which fell off because he was too little."
He states on the twitter video he uploaded:
"Unbelievable!! @KWPOLICE used "scared straight" tactics on 8yo boy with special needs. He's 3.5 ft tall and 64 lbs, but they thought it was appropriate to handcuff and transport him to an adult prison for processing!! He was so small the cuffs fell off his wrists!"
Unbelievable!! @KWPOLICE used “scared straight” tactics on 8yo boy with special needs. He's 3.5 ft tall and 64 lbs, but they thought it was appropriate to handcuff and transport him to an adult prison for processing!! He was so small the cuffs fell off his wrists! pic.twitter.com/iSTlXdKas6
— Ben Crump (@AttorneyCrump) August 10, 2020
To the shock of some, The Key West Police Chief Sean T. Brandenburg, explained that such activity was common operating procedure and that the police had done nothing wrong. He said according to the New York Times:
"Based on the report, standard operating procedures were followed."
The actions of the police have been condemned by a number of politicians, including Former San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro, who tweeted:
"Unbelievable. Police in Key West tried to put an 8-year-old boy in handcuffs and transport him to jail to 'scare him straight.'"
Unbelievable.
— Julián Castro (@JulianCastro) August 10, 2020
Police in Key West tried to put an 8-year-old boy in handcuffs and transport him to jail to “scare him straight.”
Police should have no role in punishing our kids or pulling traumatic stunts like this in our schools. pic.twitter.com/2gFzHlvwLL
Questions the video raises include why law enforcement is taking such an active role in the punishment of such small children, particularly when these incidents are not particularly serious. There is also questionable effectiveness of 'scaring a child straight' and many would assume that such actions are far more likely to traumatise a child and create further problems down the line.
The uploading of the video comes as protests against police violence and police malpractice reach their sixth month. The demonstrations were sparked by the killing of an unarmed black man, George Floyd, by police officers in Minneapolis who suffocated him to death by kneeling on his neck for 9 minutes.
COMMENTS